


Whispering "Hush"

by Topaz_Eyes



Category: 24
Genre: Childhood, Drama, Family, Father-Daughter Relationship, Gen, Goodnight Moon, Memories, Nostalgia, Prompt Fic
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2005-06-20
Updated: 2005-06-20
Packaged: 2017-10-03 17:46:42
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,226
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20692
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Topaz_Eyes/pseuds/Topaz_Eyes
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Jack finds a book Kim loved as a child, and remembers.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Whispering "Hush"

**Author's Note:**

> Title and lines from "Goodnight Moon" by Margaret Wise Brown with pictures by Clement Hurd, copyright 1947 by Harper and Row Publishers. From a children's storybook challenge in [](http://community.livejournal.com/24_ficlets/profile)[](http://community.livejournal.com/24_ficlets/)**24_ficlets**. Thank you to jazzypom for the beta!

The packed Greyhound bus pulls into the alleyway toward the station. It is very early afternoon, bright enough to hurt unwary eyes used to the stale dimness behind tinted windows. Jack idly watches the faded brick buildings and dirty snow piles slide by as the bus turns, creeps into the loading bay and stops to unload.

The other passengers awaken out of their lulled reveries and slowly disembark. About half are young college students, about Kim's age, and he tries not to think about that; the other half are senior citizens. He's the only one in between today, it seems. After the New Year, they are heading back to school, or home, or to visit friends and loved ones. Jack tries not to think that none of those are his destinations either as he steps out of the bus and into the January noonday chill.

The crowd heads towards the seemingly ubiquitous Tim Horton's (every town has at least one; here he's seen three so far) across the alleyway for coffee and donuts or perhaps a quick lunch. They have forty minutes here on this stop-over, plenty of time to load and unload passengers, freight, and baggage. Jack knows he should probably go with the others to eat but he is not hungry at the moment; he rarely is anymore, he ate at the last stop and knows he will be good until the next one. So he wanders the other way, towards the front of the station and onto the sunny tree-lined boulevard.

Jack heads toward the small locally-owned bookstore that sits right across the street from the bus station. It is the crisp smell of paper and the sweet heaviness of ink mixed with dusty spice that he remembers as he opens the jingling door. The light is dim, his eyes must adjust for a minute after the noonday sun--a face smiles at him from the front desk, he blindly nods hello--there, now he sees clearly again. He checks his watch. He has about thirty minutes before he needs to board the bus again, but that's still loads of time to kill. Jack tries not to think of the other meanings behind that word.

He is content to stroll around the crowded shelves of jumbled colors, not looking for any book in particular; he will pick up some newspapers on the way out, the next leg of the trip is four hours counting all the scheduled stops along the way, so he will need something to occupy the time. There is no one else in the store; yet the clerk hovers in the background, somehow sensing he does not want to be bothered by her false-cheery "How may I help you?" Jack is grateful for the lack of intrusion.

Unconsciously he wends his way to the children's section, a couple of rows of cheerful child-sized shelving and rosy pictures on the jackets, where he stops with a sharp hiss of breath. It is the bright orange and green glossy cover that draws his eye and at the same time begins to ignite the spark of memory he works so hard to keep extinguished. He bends down and picks it up, thinking that the book is much smaller than he remembers. The copy they used to have was much larger, a proper picture book; this one is made of sturdy thick cardboard and smooth edges and is meant to be held in small innocent hands, not in large guilty ones such as his own.

He looks up and around the crowded shop, making his way resolutely to the cashier at the front desk, the book held fast to his chest. The cashier is perhaps a little older than Kim is now, hazel eyes tired behind her blue-rimmed glasses; but her mouth curves into a warm genuine smile at him, a gesture of common kindness he still can't help but find unsettling. (Kindness was something entirely uncommon before.) She is quite obviously pregnant. He reads "Kelly" on the name tag. Kelly, Kim, they somehow blur--

Kelly smiles even more widely at the book as she rings it through. "This is such a wonderful book. I read this aloud to my baby every night. When he's born he'll have it memorized I'm sure."

He nods slightly. "It was my daughter's favorite when she was a child." He doesn't know why he feels the need to share something so personal with this stranger he's sure he will never see again, but he does.

Kelly looks up at the note of sadness in Jack's gravelly voice; her brow furrows just slightly. Jack realizes he's just said too much and thinks he might break at her next words, but all she says is "Have a nice day," uttering the stock goodbye with surprising compassion behind it. He suddenly knows that to her for a brief moment he is real, not just another customer passing through, and that is a strangely comforting thought.

He stuffs the small plastic bag containing the book and the newspapers into his knapsack and checks his watch again. Ten minutes left; enough time for a proper bathroom break before boarding. In the dilapidated men's room he stares at his face in the mirror for a moment before splashing cold water on his shadowed cheeks. Then he heads out to join the others waiting in line to board.

Jack has saved his seat by the window in the middle of the bus, so he reclaims it easily enough. Thankfully his too-talkative seat mate had disembarked here, and it doesn't look as if there will be many new passengers boarding, so with luck he might have both seats to himself for the rest of the trip. He pulls his knapsack up from the floor and sets it on the seat beside him. Jack also cultivates a rather menacing scowl on his face for good measure, and it works; the new passengers tacitly avoid the aisle seat with the severe-looking man beside it, so he is blessedly left alone.

The bus revs up and slowly pulls out of the station bay, down the wide town street and towards the main highway, through the old established red-brick two-story neighborhoods along the river. Jack stares out the window, thinking that this might not be a bad place to settle; he files this town's name in his mind, to come back to if he can't find anywhere else to go. The bus reaches the highway and turns right onto the four-lane road, merging cleanly with the semi-trailers and farm trucks fielding green-and-white license plates. A few more minutes and the bus reaches the open prairie again, heading northwest through the desiccated brown fields.

Jack rummages through his knapsack to retrieve one of the newspapers to peruse when his hand brushes against the cool plastic bag. Implacably drawn to it, he pulls it out, seeing the bright cover through the translucent film. He takes the book out of the bag and holds it in his hands, one finger lightly tracing over the yellow words of the title.

He used to know all the words by heart, used to be able to recite them without thought. Jack and Teri had read this book aloud to Kim almost since birth. The words now are just out of reach, teetering at the edge of his memory. Then he remembers Kim's childish cadence rising and falling with his deeper one--the weight of her snuggled in his lap, damp after her bath and smelling of baby powder, Ivory soap and toothpaste, her downy head tucked against his shoulder; impossibly smooth and delicate tiny hands covering his own as he held the book open in front of her. So he opens it now and begins to read, lips forming silently around the words.

** _In the great green room there was a telephone, and a red balloon..._ **

"Daddy, Daddy! I learned to tie my shoes today!"

Kim at four, her small voice ringing clear down the line, if a little distorted, soaring over the crackles that come with any international call. Where had he been then? Frankfurt? Seoul? He can never remember. What he recalled was the bubbling delight in his little girl's voice, she had been practicing for three weeks straight, her four-year-old brow furrowed in utter concentration and now _look Daddy, look and see I even did the bows!_ With his mind's eye then and now he sees her chubby finger pointing down at her newly-tied bright red sneakers.

"That's wonderful, honey!" Trying to convey in his voice all his love and pride in his little girl for doing something so difficult at this age; he hadn't learned to tie his shoes until he was seven. Trying to keep all the longing and wistfulness out of his voice so as not to worry her, because he missed them so much these days it ached. "When I get home, you show me how you tie your shoes, all right?"

"Sure, Daddy! And can I tie your shoes too?"

"You bet."

"And when you get home we'll go to the zoo and buy balloons..."

 

** _And two little kittens, and a pair of mittens..._ **

Jack had come back from yet another trip (he always seemed to be away), arriving home in Washington one snowy mid-December evening. There had been a raging snow storm throughout the Northeast and he'd been delayed at the airport in New York. He was supposed to return on a connecting flight that afternoon, but now he was finally home, exhausted and sore and trying not to think of what he'd done on this particular journey. He climbed out of the cab and started to trudge up to the brownstone they'd owned back then. He looked up at the sound of metal scraping against concrete; Teri was shoveling the snow-covered front walk. The windows and doors were festooned with multi-colored Christmas lights.

Teri snapped her head up as the cab drove off, gazing right into his tired eyes, and he instantly relearned the curve of her smile. "Jack, oh thank God you're finally home!" She flung the shovel onto the snowbank and flew down to him, hugging him tightly; he returned the embrace gratefully, dropping the cases he carried, bone-tired but glad to be back with those he loved. Burying his face in her hair, he smelled the evening air, perspiration and Chanel on her neck, smells of love and home. "Kim honey, Daddy's home!" she called out, kissing his cheek and stepping back.

Kim was six then, apple-cheeked in the cold, rising up excitedly from the lawn and barreling into Jack's arms. "Daddy, Daddy, come make snow angels with me!" And before he could protest she was pulling at his gloveless hand, her mittens cold and wet from the snow. "Daddy, where are your mittens? Aren't your hands cold?"

"No honey, they're not cold," he reassured her, though he winced at the innocent fingers tugging at his own; his fingers that only twenty-two hours before had been squeezing the life out of a former colleague-turned-enemy-spy they'd caught in Rotterdam. Even so, he allowed her to drag him to the front yard where three Kim-sized snow angels already lay side by side, wings touching as if holding hands.

"You make your angel there," Kim directed, pointing to a space beside the last angel. "And Mommy will make her angel there, and then we'll have a whole angel family, with an angel mom and an angel dad and three angel kids."

Kim had looked up at him with her blue eyes shining and expectant, and Jack knew he couldn't disappoint her. "Sure, honey," he agreed, and lay down in the snow, carefully so as his "wings" would touch those of the other angels.

He lay for a minute, the blessed cold seeping into his back, until Kim wailed "Come on Daddy, Mommy's almost done!" He'd raised his head then and saw Teri, sweeping her arms and legs in the white powder and laughing, so he did the same, and let Kim's exuberance and delight at having a real angel "family" wash away the events of the last couple of days.

 

** _...Goodnight moon.  
Goodnight cow jumping over the moon..._ **

Kim at nine, sitting on the carpeted floor at home in front of the television in their living room, curled up in an empty laundry basket of all places. Teri sat folding laundry from a second basket, and Jack was helping her for there was quite a pile of it. There was a documentary about the history of the moon landings on PBS and Kim watched intently, chewing on one thumb and idly twirling a braid. Jack was content to sit and watch her, the flickering light of the television ghosting across her face, and her faintly quizzical expression as the narrator explained what had happened during the Apollo Thirteen mission.

"So they never landed?" she asked, looking back at Jack.

"They couldn't. If they did they never would have come back to Earth."

"Oh." She was quiet for a bit, twiddling her braid. "So for them it was coming home that was important, not the mission."

"Yes, hon."

"Even though they'd never do it again."

"That's right."

She nodded. "Dad, what would be more important to you if you were there? The mission, or coming home?"

Teri, stunned, dropped the pair of jeans she'd just picked up and stared at Jack, waiting for his answer. Jack blinked, the T-shirt he was folding frozen in mid-air. They'd never told Kim what he did for a living, yet out of the blue she'd asked perhaps the hardest question she ever could. He gazed at her steadily. "Coming home, hon. Always coming home." At the time Jack was sure he'd meant it.

"Thought so." Satisfied, she turned back towards the TV.

 

** _...Goodnight comb and goodnight brush._ **

At eleven Kim decided she wanted to wear her hair short. Thick and blond and hanging straight to her waist, how often had Jack just sat there when he was at home, behind the newspaper he pretended to read, mesmerized by Teri's flying fingers as she braided Kim's hair for the day? As Kim sat obediently on the high kitchen stool, not fidgeting, though ever less patiently as she grew older with the years, until that one fateful day: "Mom, Dad, can I cut my hair?"

Jack wanted to say an uncategorical "No." But Kim was eleven, and thus old enough to make such decisions by herself now; he had to accept that, and he did so reluctantly, his heart breaking a little with that new wisdom. When Kim came back from the hairdresser's later that day after school, her long tresses completely cut off, Jack had smiled fondly, though shaken by how much more mature she looked now; he put his arm around her and told her she looked beautiful. And she was, with her returning shy grin and her short spiky hair.

"I look weird, I'm not used to it," Kim admitted, "but I like it."

"So do I," Jack murmured, and he realized he did, because she did.

"And Dad, the hairdresser said she would collect my hair to make into a wig for sick kids who lost their hair!" Kim bubbled. Teri nodded over Kim's head, and Jack, his eyes shining, had never felt so proud of his little girl as he did at that moment.

 

** _Goodnight nobody, goodnight mush..._ **

Kim at fourteen, on the cusp of young womanhood and facing her first day of high school tomorrow. He couldn't be there (yet again), he had to leave very early that morning for an international agency meeting in London. Kim seemed confident enough earlier that day before the first day of school, picking out her outfit and packing her bag, so he felt he didn't need to worry.

Very late the evening before he left, he opened her bedroom door and peeked in. She slept curled around herself, bundled under the sheets and blankets. He stood for a minute contemplating how summer ended forever tomorrow, the hall light casting a faint glow on her resting form. But when he shifted to leave, he heard her clear voice call out, "Dad, what if they don't like me at high school?" She sat up then, hair tousled and looking worried, and Jack could see her deep blue eyes cloud over in the dimness of the room.

He came to her bedside and sat down on the edge of the bed. "Of course they'll like you, honey," he assured her, reaching out to take both her hands in his own. "Why wouldn't they?"

"It's just--well, there are all the cool kids, and the jocks, and the Goths, and--I--I just don't fit in anywhere, you know? Maybe with the geeks or the losers--" she finished lamely.

"Kim, listen to me. You're smart and you're kind and you're friendly. You'll have no trouble fitting in. And you're not the only person starting at high school tomorrow. Everyone will be in the same boat. You've started at new schools before, you know how to do this. I'm sure of it." He squeezed her hands.

Kim looked away. "You're just saying that because you're my dad."

"No, I'm saying it because it's true." He released her hands and hugged her tightly, inhaling her usual scents of Ivory soap, toothpaste and baby powder, and a new grown-up note of jasmine. "You'll do fine, honey. You will find a place and friends there, I know it."

Kim drew back, her face a little lighter, her eyes a little brighter. "Thanks, Dad." She lay back down.

"It's late, hon, you need to go to sleep."

Kim yawned in answer. "I know. Goodnight, Dad, love you." She closed her eyes.

"Love you too." He smoothed her hair, and sat at her bedside watching, listening for the slow steady breathing of sleep; then he silently rose and left her room, feeling her childhood pass him by.

 

** _Goodnight stars, goodnight air  
Goodnight noises everywhere._ **

Jack's vision blurs as he closes the book; it falls into his lap and he leans his head against the tinted window, squeezing his eyes shut against the shimmer. He remembers clearly where the book ended up. It had been well-worn by the time Kim had grown beyond it, with childish scribbles on the front and back inside covers and the flimsy pages torn over the years by over-eager turning; both Teri and Jack had gladly mended it time and again. But they couldn't bear to discard it once Kim outgrew it, so they'd packed it away. Bound together only by tape and love, their book sat patiently waiting in one of the packing boxes that Tony kept for him, the mementos of a dead man; waiting silently suspended, ready to come back to life when needed.

Underneath him the bus slips along the highway, heading north and west to its destination and ferrying Jack towards his, wherever it might lead. He doesn't really know yet. In the meantime though, he has a call to make. He pulls out his cell phone. He knows the voice on the other end will do anything he asks without question--even this.

The calm, familiar voice answers immediately.

"Yes?"

"There's a book I need you to find for Kim."


End file.
